NFL

Long gone are the days of being a plumber by day, baller by night. Whether that 'baller' be basket, foot, golf, or otherwise related, the players are paid too much.

Now, when someone sees an NFL player getting paid less than $1,000,000 per year, they say "wow, he's getting screwed."

It never should have come to this. The money and commercialized culture of sports will be the death of the selfless athlete.

Remember when all an athlete needed to be happy was a ring, trophy, or medal?

Neither do I.

If an NFL or MLB team ever needed a player, who do they look for? They go into the Twins or Vikings organizations.

Through the years, Minnesota franchises have done very well in bringing up great players only to let them walk and become superstars in other places.

Most notable is David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox.

For six years, the Twins groomed Ortiz to be their designated hitter. After his best season with the team in 2002 where he hit 20 home runs and 75 RBI's, they let him go to the Red Sox.

Earlier this week, the Lakers NBA Championship moved me to put together a system to rank the best teams of the 2000s decade. While creating a list of the best, I also came up with a list of the worst.

For reasoning behind my methodology, see my article on the Top 10 Teams of the Decade (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/205182-the-top-10-teams-of-the-decade...).

Here is a quick recap of how the scoring works.

A team loses one point for every year they finished below .500 in the MLB, NFL and NBA, and for each non-playoff team in the NHL since there is not really a .500 mark.

Lou Kusserow (CREDIT: Columbia Athletics)

Top 10 Sports Figures from Pittsburgh, PA

Whether they are from the gridiron or the wrestling mat, the baseball diamond or the green's of August, Pittsburgh PA has produced some of the greatest athletes and sports figures of all time. Sit back and enjoy the top 10 Pittsburgh Born Sports Figures.

In 1984 when I was 13-years old, my shoe size finally caught up with my age. To say I was clumsy was an understatement. I could barely drive to the basket for a layup without tripping over my own feet. Even walking on the sidewalk was a challenge as I struggled to adapt to my body that had sprouted up over the summer.

When tragedy strikes the world of sports, it always leaves an everlasting imprint in our lives.

No matter if we cheered the player, booed the player or hated the player, we always respected the player.

This slide show is so we never forget the guys we rooted for, the ones that could have been so great... but were stolen from us early in life. Never take for granted what you have, no matter how small or big it is, just be happy that we got to open our eyes today.

Here is a list of players that left our world tragically way before it was there time to go.

Sad news in the world of sports media as Harry Kalas passed away today at the age of 73. Kalas passed out in the broadcast booth of Washington's Nationals Park earlier today while preparing for this afternoon's Phillies-Nats game.